Student progress

Although my sewing progress wasn't great last year, my students, Miriam and Sophie continued to work away at their projects.  As this blog functions as journal for their work as well as for mine, here are a few of the smaller projects they fitted in:

Miriam has been working on Anna Maria Horner's Feather Bed Quilt for her own bed.  Here is a photo of the rows of strip pieced feathers waiting to be joined:

Miriam's top is together since this photo was taken and she is quilting it.  The weather here has been  too dark and dreary recently for good pictures so you will have to wait a little longer to see the finished quilt.

She took time off from making the quilt to make a couple of feather cushions as a gift for her aunt, using a stripy Indonesian fabric which looks amazingly like feathers and a gorgeous teal shot cotton for the background:

Beautiful concealed zip using this excellent tutorial from Sotak Handmade:

Miriam also made a trio of boxy pouches for gifts using a tutorial from an old issue of Love Patchwork and Quilting.  You can see her distinctive colour palette summed up in the paisley style lining:

There's a tutorial for a similar boxy pouch on Sotak Handmade, without the strip of pieced flying geese but with a smart contrast strip edging the zip: I'd like to give this one a go this year.  You can never have too many pouches.... and they make great presents.

The girls both made lined drawstring bags using In Color Order Jeni Baker's tutorial here.  Photo above is Miriam's bag, below is Sophie's.

Miriam had a stack of tiny bonus HSTs from a previous project.  We felt it was time for a challenge, and we don't like to waste fabric (haha!), so earlier in the year she tackled the North Wind block.  

These delightful blocks finish at 3" so there was quite a lot of unpicking and fabric 'manipulation' along the way, but the result is great and beautifully showcased in the useful bag (which holds more sewing stuff!).

Sophie has been working on a blue and cream version of the North Wind quilt block for her new bed quilt: the blocks are time consuming and accuracy is important if all the small pieces are to fit together, both in the block and at the end of the process when the rows are joined together.

Even though her blocks are twice the size of Miriam's, finishing at 6", there are many challenges to accuracy with this block, some of which only show up as the blocks are joined together into rows, so it has been good for learning.

She is now at the stage of deciding what to do for a pieced border.  Look out for future updates as I promise it is going to be a beautiful quilt.

Other small items she has made recently include:

Calico drawstring bags for loose vegetables to reduce the need to use plastic bags when shopping.

A trio of wide mouth pouches for gifts: this is the Noodlehead tutorial she used.

And Sophie had a go at waterproofing some of her own fabric for this pouch below, so it could be used as a washbag:  she used Odicote and here is a Youtube video explaining how to use the product.

She made another threadcatcher basket (tutorial here from The Sewing Chick) in her favourite blues.

These sturdy little baskets are great for all sorts of things.  I use mine for keeping my worktable clear of  scraps and threads when I am trimming blocks, but the girls use them for all sorts of other purposes.

Here is another basket: this time it is from a pattern by Beth Studley.  I made a couple of these baskets in the early part of the year as gifts for babies expected by the daughters of dear friends: I filled the baskets with small gifts, cuddly toys, a first book, toiletries and small items of clothing.  Filling the basket just added to the fun of making.

Sophie got to grips with the new techniques required for a round basket and made an excellent job of it.  Her basket is used in her family's living room for keeping the TV remote control and other necessary detritus of modern life!

I especially like the way Beth has designed the handles.  The basket is interfaced with Bosal In-R- Foam so it is quite 'bouncy' but it is robust and keeps its shape well.

And as though you can never have enough baskets (which you can't!) the girls also made in the summer a fleet of new baskets for their growing fabric collection.  

Sophie made the two on the far left of the picture, and Miriam the three on the far right.  Each basket has its own character because of the fabrics chosen.  The size is really useful, not too big or too small, and folded fat quarters fit snugly and don't flop about.

The pattern is the one hour basket tutorial by kelbysews and is also available now on Bluprint at a low cost.  Highly recommended, Miriam and Sophie interfaced their baskets with Bosal In-R-Foam again and found they could make this quite economically if they planned the cutting carefully to minimise waste.

So lots of sewing fun has been had by us all this year, even if I have less to show for it than Miriam and Sophie; lots of new challenges and skills acquired.  And hopefully the chance to do more in 2020.  

I am grateful to all those creative people out there who design and post patterns for all the lovely things we sewers get to make.  I appreciate their generosity, often in posting free tutorials which must take hours to write and test.  There is such joy in creativity and making - let's keep on sharing it.

Enjoy your sewing this year!